Although Nicodemus had been thus won to believe in the divine nature of Christ's mission, his faith was yet very incomplete in that he believed Him to be inspired only after the fashion of the Old Testament prophets. To this faint-hearted faith corresponded his timidity of action, which displayed itself in his coming "by night," lest he should offend his colleagues in the Sanhedrin and the other hostile Jews John In answer to the veiled question which the words of Nicodemus implied, and to convince him of the inadequacy of mere intellectual belief, Christ proclaimed to him the necessity for a spiritual regeneration: "Except one be born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God" John This was interpreted by Nicodemus only in its materialistic sense, and therefore caused him bewilderment and confusion John But Christ, as on another occasion when dealing with His questioners on a similar point of doctrine compare John , 53 , answered his perplexity only by repeating His previous statement John He then proceeded to give further explanation.
The re-birth is not outward but inward, it is not of the body but of the soul John Just as God is the real agent in the birth of the body, so also is He the Creator of the New Spirit; and just as no one knoweth whence cometh the wind, or "whither it goeth," yet all can feel its effects who come under its influence, so is it with the rebirth.
Only those who have experienced it as a change in themselves, wrought by the Divine Power, are qualified to judge either of its reality or of its effects John , 8. But Nicodemus, since such experience had not yet been his, remained still unenlightened John Christ therefore condemned such blindness in one who yet professed to be a teacher of spiritual things John , and emphasized the reality in His own life of those truths which He had been expounding John With this, Christ returned to the problem underlying the first statement of Nicodemus.
If Nicodemus cannot believe in "earthly things," i. The Defense: The above interview, though apparently fruitless at the time, was not without its effect upon Nicodemus. At the Feast of Tabernacles, when the Sanhedrin was enraged at Christ's proclamation of Himself as the "living water" John , 38 , Nicodemus was emboldened to stand up in His defense.
Yet here also he showed his natural timidity. But there are three problems with this idea. Comparing what he knew from the Old Testament and the expectation of the Messiah, he planned for a way to see Jesus. Therefore, he came honestly seeking after God. By the time of Jesus's crucifixion, Nicodemus had grown bold enough to publicly reveal what he now believed. In John , Nicodemus spoke to a group of unbelieving Pharisees against unlawfully seizing Jesus. Later in John , after Jesus had been crucified, Nicodemus joined Joseph of Arimathea in giving Jesus a traditional Jewish burial.
Share this. Nicodemus expected to be ushered into the kingdom of God as a natural-born, devout Jew, but Jesus announced that anything less than a complete change of character by the power of the Holy Spirit was insufficient Rom. Those who are born from above must resemble their heavenly Father in character 1 John —3 and by His grace live lives victorious over sin Romans — And He predicted that He will be lifted up John signifying what type of death He will suffer.
This was the highest illustration of mercy. In John 7, Nicodemus appears in the narrative again when some Pharisees ordered the temple guards to arrest Jesus, but the guards could not do that because of His holy Words John — The Pharisees rebuked the guards. Nicodemus begged for just and fair judgement, according to the law.
However, the pharisees dismissed his warnings accusing him of sympathy to Jesus. Joseph asked Pilate for the body of Jesus to place in his tomb and Nicodemus bought 75 pounds of spices for the burial preparation. This large quantity was purchased at considerable price.
0コメント